As PCBs are essential components for various electronic products, the technological development of PCBs is designed and developed in response to changes in downstream product trends. Electronic products with high industrial relevance can be divided into three major application products: information products, communication products, and consumer electronics. The most representative products include NB, mobile phones and LCD TVs, touch panels, and other system products. The development and market situation of these products deeply affect the development of the PCB market. Therefore, the following will mainly analyze the market situation of the main application products of PCB boards.

1、 NB notebook computer

1. Overall market size

In 2008, the global shipment of NB (Notebook; NB) reached 142 million units (including Netbook), with an annual growth rate of 32.9%. Faced with this downturn, notebook computers will be the product with relatively good growth potential and can show positive growth in electronic products in 2009. It is estimated that the global shipment of notebook computers in 2009 was about 150 million units, with an annual growth rate of 5.3% compared to 2008. Although it is far lower than the double-digit growth in 2007 and 2008, it is still one of the most impressive consumer electronic products.

In an unfavorable environment, the reason why the NB market can stand out is mainly due to the gradual replacement of desktop computers by NB, the hot selling of Netbooks, and the high growth of demand in emerging markets. Since 2008, the global PC market has been almost evenly divided between NB and Desktop computers (DT). In 2009, NB's position in the PC market will significantly surpass DT. In addition, with the growth of Asia and other emerging countries, as well as the advantages of declining NB prices and high practicality, the penetration rate of NB in the general consumer market has also increased, making Asia and other emerging countries the driving force for NB market growth in 2009.

2. Important issues

(1)  Intel launches CULV, sparking HDI NB parity issue once again

The rise of Netbook has severely squeezed the market space of conventional NBs. One of the behind the scenes drivers, Intel, realized that the Netbook platform has gradually eroded its profitability performance and decided to repackage the Montevina platform, launching the Consumer Ultra Low Voltage (CULV) platform for affordable consumption. Expanding the ULV version processor product line originally used for high-end and thin laptops to entry-level single core processors such as Pentium and Celeron, the goal is to fill the gap between Netbooks and high priced and thin laptops, and find a new balance between performance, thinness, and price. According to Intel's plan, the price range of CULV NB will be between $599 and $1299.

In order to meet the demand for thinness, the CPU Package Size under the CULV architecture has been reduced from the original 37mm * 37mm to 22mm * 22mm. Therefore, it is necessary to use HDI board design for PCB boards. Intel learned from the failure of Montevina and, in order to make CULV NB more competitive in price, started by lowering CPU prices and reducing the area that requires HDI boards. The PCB boards of the CULV architecture were cut into motherboards and sub boards, with HDI boards used for the motherboard (CPU, north-south bridge chips), while the rest remained traditional NB boards. The goal was to strike a balance between cost and product efficiency, reducing the cost burden on ODM factories. The actions taken by several major companies such as Acer, Lenovo, Asus, and MSI indicate that this has significantly increased the attractiveness of ODM manufacturer NB's switch to HDI design.

However, CULV faces the dilemma of overall poor economic conditions on the one hand, and on the other hand, it must compete with Netbook for market share. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether CULV can occupy a certain proportion of the NB market. If the CULV market cannot be opened smoothly, the adoption of HDI design by NB will still be limited to the high-end NB market.

(2) Chinese Mainland 3G Opens

After years of calling for 3G construction, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of Chinese Mainland finally issued three licenses on January 7, 2009, and planned to invest 170 billion yuan in 2009. It is estimated that 55 cities in China and more than 770000 3G base stations will be built in 2009, and China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom are required to target 50 million 3G users each. It is expected that the 3G mobile phone market will grow significantly under the strong promotion of the Chinese government, and it is estimated that it will reach 47 million units in 2009.

The implementation of 3G is undoubtedly a new market opportunity for PCB boards. Because 3G mobile phones have a large amount of transmitted signals, they must need HDI mobile phone boards. It is not long before PCB manufacturers in Chinese Mainland cut into HDI boards. In the case of low yield and small scale, Taiwan funded PCB manufacturers will take the opportunity to cut into the supply chain in Chinese Mainland.

(3)  With the penetration rate of Smart Phone increasing, business opportunities for both soft and hard boards are emerging

Soft and hard boards were initially limited to niche markets that emphasized reliability, such as military, aviation, and healthcare. In 2004, consumer products such as DVDs, DSC, and MP3 gradually introduced soft and hard board designs as they moved towards digitization. However, due to the limited size of such markets, there has not been a significant growth in the size of the software and hardware board market. It was not until 2006, when the functions of mobile phones were increasing and the market demand for lightweight phones increased, that more mobile phones began to introduce software and hardware board designs. However, due to the huge demand in the mobile phone market, it led to a significant growth in the software and hardware board market.

However, although soft and hard boards have the advantages of being lightweight, high transmission speed, and high reliability compared to connector designs, they have the disadvantages of high technical complexity, long process, and low yield due to the need to simultaneously consider the characteristics of both soft and hard boards during production and design. As a result, the price is quite expensive. The price of 1SF is no different from that of 2nd order HDI with the same area. In the past, in addition to the use of soft and hard board designs in the Camera Module section and some folding, sliding, or 3D rotating phones in camera phones, it was usually only possible for high priced phones to adopt them.

Smart Phone, due to its diverse integration of functions and different special functional requirements for appearance, as well as strict requirements for volume and weight, and fast transmission speed, is different from the limited application of soft and hard boards in the Camera Module section on mobile phones in the past. It is gradually moving towards multi part and modular applications of the entire machine, including keyboards, side buttons, and more LED and touch screen peripherals, speakers, sensors, etc. In addition, Samsung's newly launched W7900 phone with an embedded micro projector in 2009 also utilizes a design of both software and hardware in the projector lens.

In 2008, mobile phone manufacturers further divided the Smart Phone models into entry-level and high-end models, and expanded the entry-level Smart Phone to the general consumer market through affordable pricing and cooperation with telecommunications companies. The effect will emerge in 2009, and the estimated penetration rate of the Smart Phone market in 2009 can reach 15%, crossing the gap of new technology dissemination and moving towards the early majority adoption stage. Therefore, based on the trend of increasing internal software and hardware design in several mainstream Smart Phones, the global software and hardware market will experience significant growth in the second half of 2009 and 2010, as the penetration rate of Smart Phones increases significantly.

III LCD TV Market

1. Overall market size

The global LCD TV2008 shipment volume was 20.6 million units, with an annual growth rate of 3.4%. The rapid decline in LCD TV prices has significantly increased consumers' willingness to purchase models under 32 inches. In the first half of 2008, there was a prosperous off-season, and the market was optimistic. However, the sudden financial tsunami in the second half of 2008 caused demand to evaporate significantly overnight, resulting in LCD TV growth not as expected throughout the year. Looking forward to 2009, although the demand of European and American markets has shrunk, the government of Chinese Mainland has timely expanded the implementation of the policy of home appliances going to the countryside, which will have a lifting effect on the LCD TV market. It is estimated that the annual growth rate of LCD TV shipments in 2009 will only decline slightly by 1.8%.

2. Important issues

(1) Chinese Mainland's Home Appliances to the Countryside Policy

In 2009, Chinese Mainland expanded the implementation of the policy of home appliances going to the countryside to all parts of the country. In April 2009, the color TV subsidy was again increased to 3500 yuan, so that the LCD TV model conforming to the principle of home appliances going to the countryside could be expanded to 37 inches, and 32 inches also had the opportunity to become the mainstream specification. Keeping pace with the mainstream demand of global consumers would help to increase the willingness to buy.

In addition to stimulating the economy, Chinese Mainland actively implements the policy of home appliances going to the countryside. It also balances the gap between rural and urban living standards and checks and balances the market share of foreign TV brands in China, making Taiwan panel manufacturers lacking TV brands become the main panel suppliers. For LCD TV PCB panel manufacturers, it will be an opportunity to expand new markets.

(2). LCD TV backlight changed to LED

After the transition of NB backlight from CCFL to LED, LCD TV backlight will gradually shift towards using LED. Although only SONY and Samsung have launched LCD TVs with LED backlight, which is still a nascent market, the growth of this market is just around the corner amidst the green trend in the market.

For hard board factories, After using LED for the backlight of LCD TV, it is different from NB using LED which is packaged with a soft board, LCD TVs do not have strict requirements for lightness as NB, so traditional FR-4 packaging is sufficient, which will create a new market for hardware manufacturers.

The touch wave is the next wave of growth driving engine for soft boards

Touch technology has been in use for a long time. In the past, PDAs and tablet computers (Tablet PCs) were also popular worldwide, driving a touch craze. However, after 2002, they fell silent for a long time and have not received consumer attention in the past few years. In 2006, handheld phones with touch screens accounted for only about 2% of total phone shipments. However, in 2007, led by the Apple iPhone, another wave of touch phones ignited, which was different from the past when PDA phones needed to use a stylus for touch control, The Apple iPhone can be easily operated with fingers, and then Apple took the opportunity to introduce the new multi touch function in the iPhone 3G, Apple is known for its user-friendly interface design and innovation, and its flexible use of touch technology makes the human-machine interface of mobile phones more intuitive.

Affected by the hot sales of Apple iPhones and the trend of mobile internet access, more and more Smart Phones are adopting touch screens to consider the convenience of consumer use, such as the HTC Touch Diamond As shown in Table 4, Nokia N97, LG KU900 Viewty, Samsung F488, and others have almost become the basic equipment of Smart Phones with touch screens. It is expected that in the future, phones with touch functions will grow significantly compared to the past. In addition, with the increase of new application scenarios, touch functions have further extended from mobile phones to PND MP

3. Portable gaming console. In addition, Microsoft will officially launch Windows 7 with a focus on touch functionality in October 2009, which will have an explosive effect on PCs using touch design. In the future, more NB (including UMPC) and All in One PC models will use touch screens.

Due to mobile phones NB emphasizes lightness and thinness, so considering space, if you want to add a Touch Panel, you may need to connect it with a soft board to the motherboard in order to achieve the requirements of thinness. Therefore, with the increasing demand for touch phones and NB, the soft board will also be lifted and grown synchronously.